1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to jewelry manufacturing, and particularly to a process for manufacturing diamond cut hollow rope chain jewelry.
2. Description of Related Art
It is known in the background art to produce rope chain jewelry items comprised of rings of gold alloy material. Jewelry rope chains, such as necklaces or the like, are made from an interlocking configuration of individual ring shaped annular links which are intertwined to form a rope-like structure. In general, jewelry rope chains can be made of solid links, or hollow links. Chains made of solid links are known as "solid rope chains" and chains made of hollow links are known as "hollow rope chains".
One method of producing rope chain jewelry involves the use of a mechanical cutting process wherein a mass of solid gold or gold alloy is used to create solid jewelry chains having the appearance and/or texture of rope. According to the process of the background art, a solid gold chain is placed on a rotatable drum of a lathe having a diamond tipped cutting element. Next, cold water is sprayed over the drum and chain and frozen thereby forming a layer of ice that completely covers the chain and causes the chain to be fixedly secured to the drum. Finally, the diamond cutting tool is used to remove portions of the ice covering the chain and to selectively cut or remove portions of the gold chain material by applying the diamond cutting tool to the chain while the drum rotates.
The diamond cutting process of the background art, however, has not been successfully applied to chains produced with hollow rings. The background art does reveal, however, attempts to give the "appearance" of diamond-cut to hollow rope chains by polishing or deforming surfaces of the chain utilizing a blunt point tool. Specifically, a blunt point tool is used in lieu of a diamond cutting tool to flatten, not cut, the rings to give the appearance of diamond cut faces.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,581,993, issued to Strobel et al., discloses a hollow diamond cut rope chain with multi-faceted surfaces formed by incremental deforming hollow links resulting in a simulated diamond cut multifaceted jewelry rope chain. The '993 Patent, however, suffers from the above-referenced limitations of the background art by failing to achieve a hollow rope chain having actual diamond cut surfaces.
In addition, a number of other references disclose similar limitations. U.S. Pat. No. 5,535,583, issued to Holzer et al. discloses a method of faceting a hollow rope chain wherein the chain is moved continuously over pulley guides whereon the exposed chain surface is deformed without the removal of material. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,353,584, 5,408,820, 5,437,149, and 5,487,264, issued to Strobel et al., each disclose hollow rope chain jewelry having simulated diamond cut faceted surfaces formed by deforming (i.e. flattening) the hollow links.
The diamond cutting methods of the background art, however, are limited to use with solid alloy's and have not be capable of use in connection with "hollow" rings of gold alloy material as the use of hollow rings results in a chain having a tensile strength that is not sufficient to withstand normal wear and tear without breaking. Furthermore, since hollow rings have relatively thin walls, very high tolerances are required to remove material from the ring walls using a diamond cutting machine, which tolerances have heretofore not been reliably achievable due in large measure to the difficulties experienced in uniformly winding a rope chain on the drum of a lathe such that the surfaces of the chain are precisely and uniformly positioned. Only when the chain surfaces are so positioned is it possible to remove a portion of the material from the walls of the individual rings.
Accordingly, there exists a need for a process for manufacturing rope chain jewelry from hollow rings of gold material.